Stock market today: With US markets closed, Asian shares slip and European shares gain
BANGKOK– Asian shares were mostly lower on Friday, following strong gains in Europe overnight, while US markets were closed for the July 4 national holiday.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 reached 41,000 on Friday morning, but then fell from Thursday’s record closing price of 40,913.65. U.S. futures rose slightly and oil prices fell.
The U.S. government will provide a comprehensive update on how many workers employers added to their payrolls in June. Traders are watching such numbers closely in hopes that they will show the economy is slowing enough to prove inflation is under control, but not so much that it will tip into a recession.
That would increase the likelihood that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates, which have been at their highest level for 20 years. That would ease the pressure on the economy by making borrowing cheaper.
The jobs report is expected to show that employers added 190,000 jobs, a significant increase but down from a robust 272,000 in May.
“The upcoming June jobs report will play a critical role in shaping expectations for near-term Federal Reserve rate cuts. Markets currently see a reasonable chance of two rate cuts this year, compared to the Fed’s median forecast of just one cut in 2024,” Anderson Alves of Activ Trades said in a commentary.
In Asian trading on Friday morning, the Nikkei 225 fell 0.2% to 40,843.90 after the government said higher prices had dented consumer confidence more than expected in May, with household spending falling 1.8%.
Chinese markets were markedly weaker, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng down 1.1% to 17,823.67 and the Shanghai Composite index losing 0.9% to 2,929.98. The Shanghai benchmark was trading near its lowest levels since February.
The Kospi in Seoul rose 1.3% to 2,860.26 after Samsung Electronics forecast second-quarter operating profit to jump more than 15 times from a year earlier to 10.4 trillion won ($7.52 billion).
Like it NvidiaTaiwan’s TSMC, Tokyo Electron and other computer chip makers, Samsung are benefiting from a revival in the semiconductor industry as applications leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) gain traction.
Elsewhere in the region, the Australian S&The P/ASX 200 fell 0.2% to 7,820.20. Taiwan’s Taiex rose 0.1% and Bangkok’s SET rose 0.2%.
With US markets closed on Thursday, attention turned to Britain, where FTSE 100 futures rose 0.2% on Friday morning as an exit poll and partial results showed Britain’s Labour Party on course for a landslide victory in a parliamentary elections.
Britain has endured a turbulent series of years under Conservative rule, leaving many voters pessimistic about the future of their country. The UK’s exit from the European Union, followed by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has hit the economy hard. Rising poverty and cuts to public services have led to complaints of “Broken Britain”.
The British pound rose from $1.2760 to $1.2773 on Thursday night. The euro rose from $1.0812 to $1.0821.
On Thursday, the FTSE 100 rose 0.9% to 8,241.26 and Germany’s DAX rose 0.4% to 18,450.48. In Paris, the CAC 40 rose 0.8% to 7,695.78.
During a shortened trading session on Wall Street on Wednesday, the S&The P 500 rose 0.5% to reach its 33rd record high this year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.1% and the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.9% to push up its own record.
On Friday, benchmark U.S. crude fell 17 cents to $83.71 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Brent crude, the international standard, fell 32 cents to $87.11 a barrel.